Page 43 of Emerald Malice

My jaw snaps open. “You mean to say you’re going to be hanging out inside my apartment? With me?”

Shura shrugs, completely unbothered. “I can mind my own business.”

“Have you seen my apartment? You can’t swing a cat in there. There’s not enough room for the two of us.” I turn to gape at Andrey, who, like Shura, couldn’t be less concerned. “I don’t want anyone in my way.”

“He won’t be. Shura just said he’ll mind his own business.”

“He’ll—You—You know what? No. He’s not coming into my apartment.” I try to meet Shura’s eye in the rearview mirror, but he’s not even looking at me. “No offense or whatever. I’m sure you’re a stand-up guy and everything—you know, apart from the fact that you work for a Bratva crime ring—but I still don’t know you.”

Andrey sighs like a long-suffering parent. “You don’t have to know him. You have to trust me.”

“And what if I don’t trust you?”

He clicks his tongue impatiently. “Then you’re fresh out of luck, because you don’t get a choice.”

“Since when?”

“Since that baby came to life in your belly.”

Apparently, keeping my pregnancy on the down-low doesn’t extend to Andrey’s men. Neither of them bats an eye, though.

“That’s ridiculous. I get a say.”

The aggressive silence from all three men is hugely annoying. Especially because they’re all acting as though I’m the unreasonable one.

“If you’re uncomfortable with the current plan, I can always have Shura turn the car around and take us back to the manor.”

“Those are my choices? My place with invasive guards or your place with more of them?”

“Correct.”

I scowl. “That’s not fair.”

He shrugs. “Life tends not to be.”

“Fine,” I mumble irritably. “Keep driving.”

As soon as we get to my building, I jump out of the car before it’s even reached a full stop and make straight for the door. I’m expecting Shura to follow me, and he does, but Andrey joins us as well.

“Didn’t get a good enough snoop around last time?” I snap at him.

He smirks and says nothing, which is the most irritating thing he could possibly have said.

I open the door and trip on a pair of shoes blocking the entrance. The apartment is looking particularly shabby this evening, what with the empty coffee cups on the counter and the pile of dirty laundry I was supposed to take to the laundromat three days ago.

“It’s not always like this,” I mumble, trying to stow away the half-finished romance novel lying face-up on the coffee table before anyone can see just how trashy my taste in fiction is.

“Dear God,” Andrey mutters in a low voice. “It’s worse than I remember.”

He picks his way through the mess and stops at the window, staring at the cracked, water-stained paint in the wall just above the radiator. My anxiety spikes watching him judge my living conditions, so I turn to Shura to busy myself with something else.

“You want something to drink? I’ve got water and… uh, actually, just water.”

“Water, thank you.”

When I pass the glass of water to Shura over the counter, I realize that his boss is missing. “Where’s?—”

“Is that mold?” Andrey growls, his voice booming from my bedroom.

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